Zombies bring uptown to life, inject $39K in Shelby's economy

Wednesday

Nov 6, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Molly Phipps

Zombies don’t go anywhere without making an impact.

At the first Shelby Zombie Crawl, more than 1,000 zombies converged on the uptown area, spending more than $39,000 at various uptown restaurants and businesses, according to Jackie Sibley, the county’s director of travel and tourism.

“The total spending in uptown Shelby for the Zombie Crawl is estimated at $39,000 based on receipts received and reports from participating businesses,” said Sibley.

Sibley said the average spending per person during Friday night's event was $48.37.

Uptown businesses were glad to receive the extra sales. Many reported sales increases up to 50 percent, as compared to a normal Friday night.

Chet Beam, owner of Newt’s Modern Burger, said sales were “probably about double what we would normally do on a Friday night.”

Beam said the crawl overall was a great success.

“All of our waitresses enjoyed it. They all dressed up and played the part,” he said. “I look forward to seeing them do the zombie crawl again next year.”

Pleasant City Wood Fired Grille was packed throughout the night.

“We had a great night. I’d say about a 40 percent increase in sales,” said Chris Canoutas, owner. “I probably saw at least 250 zombies. It was a very interesting and fun night.”

Canoutas said he was surprised at the support the zombie crawl received.

“Everyone was dressed up, so the turnout was incredible for a first-year event,” he said. “You saw all types of people, families all dressed up, kids. I think everybody enjoyed it.”

Zombies also crawled over to Dragon Fly Wine Market.

“We had a lot of people come in,” said Jamie Coulter, owner. “It was very successful. We saw an increase in business for sure. It was much bigger than everybody expected it to be.”

Some of those zombies were Shelby natives, but many others came from out of town. One family even came from Virginia to participate.

The Chamber also still has 70 Zombie Crawl T-shirts left, which the public can purchase for $10 by coming to the Chamber.

“I heard some of the business owners say that there were a lot of people that they hadn’t seen before,” said Audrey Whetten, director of the Uptown Shelby Association. “From an Uptown Shelby perspective, we’re happy to have new people in uptown so that they will come back. In general, I think we were all surprised at the scale of the turnout. It was a really good turnout.”

Zombie Crawl By the Numbers:

-$39,000: amount of money spent at uptown businesses during the Zombie Crawl on Nov. 1.